In poetry, providing the pure, unvarnished truth can be a rather rebellious act. Poetry is known to be full of flowery language that often puts its topic on a pedestal, only looking at its most attractive features. Frost isn't really down with this idea. In fact, he turns this notion on its head by showing us that the truth doesn't need embellishing to be beautiful or worthwhile, even if that truth comes from the most unremarkable of places. In "Mowing," Frost finds this truth by doing nothing more than mowing the grass. While it is hardly glamorous, the truth is there, waiting among the grass. Only the hard, hot work of mowing will reveal it.
Questions About Truth
- How exactly can telling more than the truth weaken an argument? How might the speaker answer this question?
- Is it possible for a truth discovered through hard work to be truer than one given freely? How so? What would the speaker say to this question?
- How truthful do you think Frost could have been if he wrote poetry about loftier, more academic topics than mowing the grass?
Chew on This
The green snake is a real snake-in-the-grass. It represents life's falsehoods and misconceptions, which the narrator scares away with his truth-bearing scythe.
One must seek out and work for truth; it does not come on its own, as Frost points out in this poem.